#COOKS VENTURE JAY OKLAHOMA FULL#
#COOKS VENTURE JAY OKLAHOMA LICENSE#

Read the full transcript of our coversation below:Ĭould you give us the context of the business? Where is it? How many people and what you do? Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts. Wadiak expands on all of these issues and more in the episode below. Big agriculture can additionally serve as the source of major pandemics. Meanwhile, because processing is so concentrated, a disruption to one plant can impact the whole system. Wadiak is a co-founder of meal subscription service Blue Apron and the CEO of Cooks Venture, which raises, processes, and sells heritage, pasture-raised chickens.īecause meat has been optimized for feed conversion (versus flavor or health), the animals in our food system often can’t outlast a plant closure and have to be euthanized. This week on Eater’s Digest, industry expert Matthew Wadiak explains why our food chain is so fragile and how we’ve incentivized the wrong qualities in big agriculture for the last seventy years. Even though President Trump deemed processing plants “critical infrastructure,” at the end of April in an attempt to pressure workers and owners to keep up the pace of their operations, closures are unavoidable. The supply chain of fresh poultry, pork, and beef has been heavily impacted by the closure of meat processing plants following novel coronavirus outbreaks.

Subscribe here to make sure you don’t miss it.Last week, almost one-fifth of Wendy’s locations were sold out of hamburgers, multiple national grocery chains limited how many fresh meat products shoppers could buy, and Shake Shack execs spoke of rising beef prices on an earnings call. On the other side of the revenue spectrum, Cooks sees the opportunity to work with companies or farmers interested in proliferating the Cooks Venture genetic lines.īecause these chickens can handle a more diverse diet, and are more heat resistant with stronger immune systems, Cooks could partner with farmers in areas with extreme heat or regions with food shortages.Ĭooks today announced that it has secured $50 million in debt financing from PIUS, which insures the debt against a growing tech company’s intellectual property.įWIW, we recently sat down with Wadiak to record an episode of the FOUND podcast.

#COOKS VENTURE JAY OKLAHOMA LICENSE#

Over time, Cooks wants to license its IP around regenerative agriculture to farmers who grow chicken feed, contracting them out to grow more biodiverse crops and ultimately feed Cooks Venture chickens. It tastes better, too, according to Wadiak, but that’s not the only (or most important) benefit.Ĭooks has its own farm to grow its feed and its own processing plant for the chickens it raises, partnering with a handful of retailers to sell its chickens to consumers (you can also buy one through the Cooks Venture website). It starts with the chickens themselves.Ĭooks Venture has done over a decade of research around chicken genetics to land on a proprietary pedigree line, the Pioneer, which is selectively bred to grow slower with a stronger immune system and much stronger gut health. On a smaller scale, this can lead to bland-tasting meat, but it also leaves the country’s supply of chicken open to being decimated by a virus.Ĭooks Venture, founded by Blue Apron co-founder Matt Wadiak, is looking to dismantle the existing system, one step at a time. It props up a conventional agricultural apparatus that focuses on corn and soy production, not to mention fosters a system where the vast majority of chicken available to consumers has been systemically inbred, lacking genetic diversity. And yet, the system in place to breed and feed and raise all this chicken is incredibly detrimental to our overall well-being. Chicken is the most consumed meat in the United States and the world.

Cooks venture jay oklahoma